Hello Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires felt like a Spanish speaking New York City. I enjoyed walking through the city and looking at the beautiful architecture and urban parks that could have been sliced right out of Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Central Park?

A giant tree similar to those I've seen in India

The city has a large number of immigrants from Italy which means that gelato, pizza (all pizzas come with at least one green olive on top), and strong coffee are readily available.

Dulce de Leche con Bon Bon

Like New York or any European city, there are also cafes on every corner.

Casa Rosada

What makes Buenos Aires unique are sites like the Casa Rosada ( I sang songs from Evita the entire time I was here),

the Recoleta Cemetery (there were as many cats here as crypts in this cemetery and a lonely man from Texas who insisted on following us around),

For all of the Dr. Who fans

View from the cemetery

Some of the cats living in the cemetery

and the abundance of affordable yet tasty steak and red wine (the wine was cheaper than the bottled water).

Ateneo bookstore

While I only had two days to spend in this city, I had a great time. Highlights for me were visiting the Ateneo bookstore—a four story theater turned bookstore packed with amazing reads (mostly in Spanish),

My friend Ashley in the bookstore

learning to cook empanadas and lentil stew in a cooking class I took in the suburbs of the city from a psychotherapist/cook named Norma,

Norma and one of the other cooking students

Empanadas

Wonderful lentil stew

and stumbling upon a Renaissance Festival set up in the streets near the center of town.

Renaissance Festival

On the last day there was also an amazing craft market in Recoleta that I enjoyed meandering through, but sadly I don’t have any pictures of this.

For the rest of my time in Argentina I flew down to Patagonia on a SAS trip. More on this to come…

Cape Town - the vacation destination

My first view of Cape Town from the ship

We’ve asked each of the work-study students in the library to write their favorite port in a logbook that we’re making for posterity. So far, all have said, “Cape Town.” I might have to agree--although I’m waiting until I’ve seen all ports before I give my final answer.

Cape Town was full of tasty food, cheap wine, beautiful scenery, and cute animals! If you’d like to travel there for a vacation, here’s the itinerary I’d recommend:

Day 1: Visit the Victoria & Albert wharf

Day 2: Climb Table Mountain

The cloud covering over Table Mountain is called the "table cloth."

Day 3-5: Go on a safari

This is the view on the drive from Cape Town to the Garden Route Safari

Here's the group I went on game drives with in the morning and evenings

Day 6: Visit a winery and have Indian food on Long Street

Day 7: See the penguins and spend the day in Simon’s Town.

That wasn’t quite my itinerary, but the safari and penguins did happen.

It seems that there are many safaris to choose from in South Africa. All come with beautiful accommodations and amazing food. 

These are the individual chalets that we stayed in. Photo taken by my friend Greg Justice.

Most, except for Kruger National Park, are private reserves meaning that the owner has bought the land and brings wild animals onto the property. Skeptics might say that this is just a glorified zoo, but I disagree. The reserves are expansive and the animals (except for the lions because they would eat everything) are usually allowed to roam free. 

Here is the view of lodge from the reserve. Photo taken by my friend Greg Justice.

Visiting a private reserve also guarantees that it’s much easier to find the animals during the morning and evening game drives. Here’s just a little bit of what we saw:

Cheetahs

Giraffes

This is how a giraffe bends down to eat.

An Elephant

Lions, 

This is me wondering if the tortoise is going to wait for me to move. He wasn't.

Tortoises, White Rhinos, Gemsbok, Eland, Ostrich, and Springbok.

The safari took most of my time in Cape Town, but there was one day left for penguins. I spent two hours basking in penguins—taking videos, pictures, watching them swim, watching them nest, watching them molt, etc. It was wonderful!

 

That afternoon we had to rush back to the ship because Desmond Tutu came on board to give a talk.

If you haven’t read his book, “God has a dream,” I highly recommend it. It explains his experience heading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission following the end of apartheid and so much more. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the book,

"In God's family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian--all belong (pg 20)."

Ghana Part II

Epilogue: I've recently been introduced to the term "poverty tourism," which is often said with a disdainful look like it is the worst kind of tourism. A friend told me of an example of "poverty tourism," that she witnessed in Haiti while volunteering there--A group drove in a fancy bus through a poor town throwing candy out of the window for the children--never leaving the bus and failing to realize that in the culture they were visiting, eating off of the ground was seen as demeaning. I mention this topic only because it is something I'm struggling with even as I write my blog post for the Togorme Village visit that I went on for my last two days in Ghana. Questions that I still have--Did my visit benefit the village community? Did I learn anything more than the fact that I am lucky to be born in the United States and not in a third world country? Are my photos justified or exploitative?

The Village:
I think it would be easier to explain my two-day stay at Togorme Village through pictures. I'll walk through the experience using captions (hopefully there is enough Internet for me to do this).

The first thing we did when entering the village was to greet the village elders.

Everyone came to welcome us including the village chiefs.

A ceremony took place that included drumming...

dancing, and prayers by the village elders.

The children who weren't in school were fascinated with our cameras and asked repeatedly for us to take their photographs.    

After the ceremony, we walked over to the school to visit the students. The elementary grades wore green uniforms.

The teachers were there to answer questions and show us the students' assignments.

Each of us was assigned a host family. This was the young man from my host family who showed me around the village. He's holding up the Kente cloth that his family weaves.

Here is the room I stayed in for the night. It's behind 

the bricks.

A little more of the village

After seeing these all over the village, I finally asked. It turns out that they are chicken coops.

This is Jennifer. She wants to be a doctor when she grows up. I hope she succeeds!

After a long and hot walk to the nearby dam, we relaxed with fresh coconuts

The view from the dam

Here's everyone who went on the walk.

Moments after we took our group photo, a storm started to come in. Our host families were so afraid that we would get wet that they quickly whisked us back to the village.

In the afternoon I sat and talked with everyone who was part of my host family. Here, one of the girls is cooking dinner for her family. She's making a corn porridge called Banku.

In the evening, all of the families came together for a big bonfire. Here are the remains.

And the next day our trip was over. We gave a small thank you gift and said our goodbyes.

I think this is a trip that I will continue to reflect on for sometime from now. I hope Jennifer becomes a doctor and I hope that as a community this village is able to thrive. I worry about their forgotten library that hasn't received funds since 1993, the overcrowded school, and the fact that there are limited ways other than making ceramic pots and weaving for the families make money. Did my visiting change their course in any way? Probably not. But I will keep this village in my thoughts and maybe one day return...

View from the countryside near the village.